


Few enough to belong

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [13]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mistakes, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 02:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: No one was happy with Zevran's recruitment, but Caitwyn Tabris felt one person's disapproval more keenly than the others.  She'd made a mistake, and like any problem, she had to find a way to fix it.  Alistair, meanwhile, thought he'd had a friend who actually listened to him for once.  Or a real friend at all.  Maybe he'd been wrong.





	Few enough to belong

“I think I made a mistake,” Caitwyn said, twiddling the stick of chalk between her fingers.  The problem on the small blackboard was unfinished, even though she had seen the answer already.  Wynne insisted that she work out each problem fully every time even if it seemed like a waste to Caitwyn.  Wynne glanced down at the board and pursed her lips.

“No, you haven’t.  Though I must say I’m surprised you’re struggling with this problem after you insisted it wasn’t any different from all the others you’ve completed.”  Wynne’s lips curved in a bemused smile. Since the Tower, Wynne had been overseeing Caitwyn’s ad hoc education. The history was dry, and the refinement to her writing was embarrassing, but she was  _ good _ at math.  She had been able to do sums and other cyphering in her head since she was a child.  She’d had to, to play odds on the racing cons she and Mama had undertaken, but she’d never seen math like she was doing now.  

It was  _ fun. _  Puzzles of numbers and letters, and always a right or wrong answer at the end.  The math, however, wasn’t where she thought she had gone wrong.

When Caitwyn said nothing further, understanding lit in Wynne’s blue eyes and Caitwyn wished she hadn’t said anything.  Rather than inquire further, however, Wynne remained silent only arching one white brow. They were stopped during the heat of the day, the broken ground baking as they drew closer to Redcliffe and its exposed, well, cliffs.  The others were doing their best to rest and stay out from under the direct light of the sun, and Maethor was a puddle of overheated dog on the crunchy yellow-green grass at her feet.

Caitwyn’s fingers curled around the wooden frame of the blackboard, and she could try to out wait the mage.  Eyes tracking the horizon, she saw hawks wheeling overhead on the hot air, sharp eyes scanning the ground for an uncautious rabbit or pheasant.  Maybe she could beg off her studies and try to hunt up something, even though the last thing she wanted to do was leave the cool shade of the scrubby tree she sat under.  Wynne regarded her as if she had the patience of stones, just like Elder Valendrian would, and Caitwyn knew she’d been doomed from the moment she opened her mouth.

“I’m not sure if I should have let the Crow join,” she said into the quiet of the buzzing and chirruping insects.  It wasn’t a hard thing to admit, in and of itself. It was the  _ why _ of it that baffled her.  

“And why is that?” Wynne asked, as if she could read Caitwyn’s mind.  As if she knew the exact question that caught at her like a tripwire. The other woman’s voice was smooth and held a touch of nearly maternal warmth.  Or maybe it was more like a teacher’s interest in a promising student. Not that Caitwyn had experience with teachers or being a student until recently.  She didn’t think her training with Mama counted.

It all came down to  _ why _ .  Why she let him join, why she let him stay, why she felt like she’d put a foot wrong with it all. 

“Everyone else is upset with it.”  That was it, wasn’t it? Caitwyn was sure that was it.  She’d only just become used to everyone, and in spite of how not all of them got along at least it had become  _ familiar _ .  Now, with the Crow, everything was thrown out of order.  Sten’s frowns were etched deeper, and Morrigan’s barbs were more pointed.  Leliana was quieter and more watchful, and Alistair. Alistair clearly was unhappy with the decision, with his continual suspsicious glares at the assassin and low voiced irritation after every blithe comment the other man made.

“You are our leader, and not every choice you make will be met with universal acclaim  It is one of the many burdens of leadership,” Wynne said, sounding oh so  _ reasonable _ that Caitwyn was reminded of the Elder all over again.  Worse, Wynne had that  _ instructing _ tone in her voice, like Mama had when she’d been trying to emphasise a point Caitwyn already knew.  

Maybe she shouldn’t be the leader, but she had already taken it up without thinking about it.  Choices had been before her, and she’d made them. Maybe that was all it was, being willing to make the choice when choices were to be had.  There was no going back and changing it, now that the way of things had been established. Still doubt circled her like street dogs, hungry and mean, waiting to catch her the moment she let her guard down.  

What did she know about battles or darkspawn or Wardens, really?  She knew thieving and picking pockets and running cons. She knew streets and surviving.  She knew playing the odds and not getting caught. She was thrown back to how she’d felt just after Ostagar, sunk beneath the weight of sudden responsibility and no idea what to do with it.  Would every challenge set her back like this? Would every obstacle feel higher and higher until it was too high for her to climb over?

And that was it, the root of her persistent uncertainty since the ambush.  The feeling of facing a sheer cliff, a thing beyond her ability to scale. How did she say she was sorry for something she wasn’t sorry for?  How did she overcome the rift her choice had made? Less than a handful of months ago she wouldn’t have cared if a human was upset with her, but now.  Now these people were was all she had out here, and she didn’t want to lose them.

“You’re not wrong,” Caitwyn said by way of half-hearted agreement.  “But that’s not the whole of it, either.” Absently, she made a few more marks on the blackboard before handing it to Wynne and standing.  She brushed strands of dry grass and tiny rocks off her leathers and trotted down the hill to another copse of parched trees where her fellow Warden tried to snatch some rest.  

Maethor raised his head, but decided it was too hot to follow.  Wynne watched the young woman traipse lightly down the slope, wondering what that obscure remark had meant.  Then glanced down at the blackboard. Caitwyn had solved the problem as if it were no more than an idle diversion.  Again.

 

* * *

 

Alistair sweltered quietly in his own armor.  Andraste’s knickers, but it was bloody hot. The exposed, rocky terrain to the west of Redcliffe made for hard travelling, even on the old Imperial Highway.  Not that they used the Highway since the ambush. Once again they were cutting across country, which was going to take longer. Another choice their erstwhile leader had made without much mind for what other people thought.

No, that wasn’t fair.  He’d stepped aside. More like huddled down and prayed that she wouldn’t try to foist leadership back on him.  But he’d thought they’d reached some kind of understanding. Not friends, exactly, but something like it. Something more than just two random people too lucky to die with the rest of the Wardens.  He’d thought that he’d been doing well at having a friend for once in his life, even if she was damned difficult to figure out. But he’d thought he’d started to understand her, just a little. That she’d been letting him understand.

Then she let the assassin join them.

First, there had been the witch.  Sure, they’d needed help to get out of the Wilds, fine.  Then the qunari who had  _ murdered _ a family.  He was good in a fight, Alistair didn’t mind admitting that, but at least he seemed moderately trustworthy.  If Sten was going to kill them, they’d be facing the giant and armed lest he risk dishonor. Alistair could trust that much at least.  Leliana and Wynne were much better, and he wanted more people like them at his back.

But the bloody assassin was really going too far!  An assassin sent by Teyrn  _ Loghain _ no less.  The man who had betrayed Duncan, who had betrayed them  _ all _ .  Sure maybe it was all professional for the Crow, but it coated Alistair’s mouth like bad medicine.  And she’d talked him down right then, but he still didn’t like it. Just plain did not like the situation or the Antivan.  With his brazen mannerisms and lingering smile. With those eyes that followed Caitwyn when she wasn’t paying attention. Not that  _ Alistair _ was paying attention.  No, he was trying to watch her back, since she wasn’t going to.

“Alistair?”  Caitwyn’s lilting voice broke into his meandering, overheated thoughts, and he jerked up with a clatter of metal.  She stood a good pace distant, her eyebrows arched in apparent concern. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” he said automatically.  Her head tilted thoughtfully, but she otherwise kept her face perfectly impassive.

“That’s not a bit of drool then?” she asked dryly.  Reflexively, he wiped at his lips, but his fingers came back dry.  

“You know, I’m beginning to regret that you have a sense of humor,” he groused, but he didn’t mean it.  Not really. She just had a bone dry sense of humor, and sometimes he had a hard time knowing that she was joking at all.  But at his grumbling she did smile, just a little twist of her lips, if not a full, toothy grin. Not that he’d seen many of those from her anyway.

“Could not, if you want, though I think that’d get rather boring.”  She was smiling a touch wider now, and he felt a bit of the tension that rode behind his ribs easing a little.  The sun dappled them both through the leaves of the tree he sat under, and he huffed in amusement.

“You’ve got me there,” he allowed, but then promptly ran out of things to say.  Before the ambush he’d been able to say whatever popped into his head, and she had never said  _ now be serious _ or  _ you’re an idiot _ .  She’d smiled her small smile, or even laughed a little, her laugh like silver bells.  He thought he could help her, ask her what she wanted to know, but he’d been trying so hard to just be her friend only for her to dance around his concerns without stopping to really listen.

Maybe it was too much to ask, to be listened to, but he thought it would’ve been nice for just one person to pay attention when he spoke up.

It would’ve been nice for that person to have been her.

“I’m not sorry about letting Zevran join up with us,” she said bluntly, the hammerblow of those words was so unusual for her that he was caught off guard.  It took a minute for him to catch up to how she was doing what everyone else did. Telling him to toughen up, to not be so naive. He frowned, a flare of anger coming to life in his chest, hotter than the air around him.  Opening his mouth to reply, she spoke over the top of him and it would have made him angier but for what she said. “But I am sorry I didn’t listen to you more right then. Sorry I didn’t tell you why I let him join sooner.  You said I wasn’t alone, that we’re in this together, and I should damn well act like it. I made the choice, but I’m not some bloody nob. No call for me to be high handed like I was. I am sorry about that. Wasn’t right.”

“No, I, really, it’s fine,” he demurred.  This was new. New and deeply uncomfortable.  He wasn’t supposed to be anybody. He was supposed to be nobody.  That had been hammered into him all his life. And he’d thought he wanted to be treated like he was somebody!?  Nope, nevermind. Take him back to the good old days of being dismissed out of hand. At least that made sense. It was what he was used to.

“Didn’t seem fine,” she said softly, her face a picture of understanding.  His eyes slid away from hers, and he wondered why she was going to the trouble.  Her leather armor creaked as she sat down next to him, her shoulder a few inches from his arm.  Glancing at her out the corner of his eyes, he watched her dark, deft fingers toy with a strand of grass, twisting it and tying it into knots.  “Seemed like you were pretty upset with me, with every right to be, too. I might know a thing or two about not being listened to, and I never thought I’d be that kind of person.  I don’t want to be.”

“You’re not.  You really aren’t,” he insisted.  “You’ve been making hard choices since Ostagar, and you’ve been doing better than I could.”  He was less discomforted now that they were talking about her and not him. But since she’d brought it up, and he thought she might just actually answer, he felt compelled to ask, “So why  _ did _ you let him join up?”

The question made her pause, and she let her gaze track out into the middle distance.  The others were spaced out under the biggest tree they could find, caging moments of privacy and rest.  In theory someone should be on watch, but he couldn’t sense any darkspawn nearby and it was too hot for even bandits to be out.  She inhaled deeply, as if bracing to dive into shockingly cold water, and then she spoke.

“I could’ve been like him.  Selling myself to survive, any which way I could.  If not for Duncan. If Duncan hadn’t given me a chance.  Made me wonder if he’d ever had a chance, or if he’d missed them.  Maybe not everyone deserves a second chance. Met a few like that in Denerim, but.  I don’t know. Doesn’t seem very smart when I say it out loud.” Her voice grew smaller and smaller as she spoke, and he barely breathed. She never talked about how she’d been recruited, what exactly had driven her into the Grey Wardens.  It wasn’t his to ask, but this was the closest she’d come to telling him and he thought he might be able to understand the impulse. Giving the Crow a chance was, in a way, paying back Duncan for saving her.

That he could do more than understand.  That he could honor.

So,” he drawled, “we have an assassin with us.  Alright, I’m sure he’ll come in handy. Somehow.  Maybe as a distraction?” He let his voice go light and bouncing, steering them away from the territory of too serious, and her white teeth flashed in a slash of a grin as she caught his mood.

“What?  We stuff him in a dress and have him dance the Riemgold?” she asked slyly, nudging him with her shoulder.  Or she tried to nudge him, because when her shoulder hit his arm she bounced off and nearly fell over. She caught herself on her hands and regarded him with such comical despair that he burst into sudden, snorting laughter.  A scowl furrowed her brow and twisted her mouth, but he could see a flash of laughter in her eyes.

“I have no idea what you thought would happen,” he said between getting his breath back.  “You are very, very tiny.”

“ _ You _ are overgrown,” she retorted, poking him in the side with one sharp finger.  The jab made him twist up to avoid getting hit again, but he allowed himself a plaintive  _ ow _ for good measure.  And just like that, it was better.  They were friends again. Or something like it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have _thoughts_ about the Warden and Alistair relationship, as friends or lovers. One of the things I'm trying to do with Cait and Alistair is portray their relationship--in all its forms--as one that's more equal than what the game allows for. This is one of the points where their _partnership_ starts to take form, and I hope people like this take on the relationship.


End file.
